An excerpt from Arnett’s novel of the same name. This is a bizarre and hilarious story about a somewhat sinister, adulterous lesbian clown.

Dwight had already seen me perform back when I was first starting out. He’d liked it fine, he’d said, but it wasn’t exactly his thing. That I understood—my big brother was never going to be the kind of guy who’d admit that I was funnier than him. But my mother, that was different. I’d wanted her approval. The look on her face, I’ll never forget; it was as if I were the most revolting thing she’d ever seen. Like she couldn’t believe she’d given birth to something so foul.

“Cheryl,” she’d said, after several agonizing seconds had passed, “What do you want me to say?”

That was the first and last time I ever performed in front of my mother.